


“He's so going to be Bragi.”

by mnemosyne



Category: The Almighty Johnsons
Genre: Snapshots, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemosyne/pseuds/mnemosyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of the second eldest Johnson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	“He's so going to be Bragi.”

1.

Anders is four years old the first time he figures out that other people find him charming. His face is red, screwed up and hot and wet and grey bunny is on the floor and he can't reach her and mother isn't looking and his brother isn't listening and he's angry and scared and grey bunny might be gone forever.

And then he gets her back and he giggles and waves at the old lady who's picked her up and dusted her off and the lady coos and calls him a pretty boy and a darling smile and couldn't you just eat him alive and you must be awfully proud of him, ma'am.

And his mother smiles at nothing and says she is and his brother sighs and kicks the counter with his bright blue shoe and grey bunny is in his arms again and everything is all right.

 

2.

When Anders is eleven, he's still tall for his age and dating Cissy Randing. Admittedly, this mostly consists of him paying for her ticket when they go to the movies with her friends, awkward fumbles in empty corridors at school and not mentioning it in any of the silences at family dinner. She's the cleverest girl in the school and everyone says she's going to go on to great things. She tells Anders that she'll marry him when they're grown up and he can't help but feel that it's the beginning of the end.

He gets the results back off his spelling test one day and is disheartened by the slashes of red pen. Mike comes by school to pick him and Ty up with Cissy's older sister, who makes up for it by saying that silent letters are stupid and does he want to go swimming later.

He doesn't end up going. Ty's locked himself in his room and Anders' shorts are in there with the rest of their washing.

 

3.

Anders is fifteen and none of his fake IDs work. 

He's not too surprised; he's more cherub than Apollo, he knows that, and what works for him with his teachers is less than effective against the bouncers at the only bar in town that seems to forget what the owner's son's schoolfriends look like.

But then _It_ happens and Mike doesn't care enough to hide the beer anymore.

Which is good by Anders, because Ty hasn't stopped crying and Axl hasn't started crying and between worrying about that on both counts, Mike's blind eye is watching over when Anders slips out and forages dinners from sympathetic smiles. 

He doesn't know what the story is, so he makes it up anew each week. The smiles don't notice any more than Mike does.

 

4.

On his eighteenth birthday, Anders stumbles home, barely able to keep upright. In fact, he thinks it's fairly certain that he wouldn't be able to stand at all, but for Linda, who is possibly Yvette, and Yvette, who is possibly Linda, holding him up between them. 

He's wearing his suit, his first suit, his first paycheck in fine tailoring and brand new mythology, and it sticks and stinks like someone's poured a bottle of vodka on it and spilled orange juice into the lining. Actually, given the bottle Linvette is drinking from, a plastic litre bottle of what looks like a smoothie and smells like paintstripper, he's not convinced that's not exactly what happened, even if he's fuzzy on the details.

On the way, he kisses Yvinda in Mike's doorway and leaves the other girl's bra hanging delicately, provocatively, on the gatepost.

 

5.

Twenty one, kneeling in the woods, shaking the ash of his favourite jacket off his skin. Anders' hands are clenched tightly around the hilt of a sword and he feels like a _god_.

Olaf hugs him tight and says a word that Anders doesn't quite understand, though he feels the dimples of Olaf's grin against his cheek. Mike just snorts and says _“Mum was right.”_

Suddenly, all Anders can think of is bright blue plastic and the absence of worn grey felt.


End file.
